Gay Athletes Have Come Out While Active or Retired

Even before Jason Collins, plenty of other athletes around the world have come out as gay, either while still active or in retirement.

From Martina Navratilova to Greg Louganis to Sheryl Swoopes, men and women from a variety of sports have openly acknowledged their sexuality, though many others are believed to still be reluctant to come forward.

Collins, a 34-year-old NBA veteran, became the first active player in the four major American professional sports to come out as gay, writing a first-person account posted on Sports Illustrated’s website Monday. Collins has played for six teams in 12 seasons, including this past season with the Washington Wizards, and is now a free agent.

"It is hugely powerful when any individual in the sports world, wherever they come from in the world, feels able to come out," said Ruth Hunt, deputy chief executive of the British gay rights organization Stonewall. "The fact that this is a current player adds to the strength of his statement."

Previously, some pro sports athletes waited until after quitting to say they were gay, including former NBA player John Amaechi and former NFL running back Dave Kopay. English soccer player Justin Fashanu committed suicide in 1998, eight years after coming out during his playing career.

Amaechi, a center who played five seasons with four teams, became the first NBA player to publicly come out in 2007, three years after the Englishman’s playing career was over. He said Collins spoke with him before deciding to come out and called his decision "ground-breaking" and one that could encourage other gay athletes to follow suit.

"I’m getting tons of messages right now from people talking to me about him, about what he’s done," Amaechi told The Associated Press. "I’ve spoken to a couple of college athletes in the States and a couple of high school athletes who are very good who have been immensely buoyed by this news.

"They feel a weight lifted off them even if they aren’t out and they aren’t going to come out at this point."

Athletes Coming Out Across the Pond

Sports leagues in Britain and elsewhere in Europe have been trying to combat anti-gay bias. But the taboo remains particularly strong in soccer, where there are no openly gay players in Europe’s top leagues. Homophobic chants still occur at some games.

"Football is not going to change," Amaechi said. "If it wanted to change it would change. It has the resources to do so. It doesn’t want to change."

Amaechi said he has been in touch with soccer players, including in the English Premier League, who are gay but are not ready to go public.

"Many of them are out already," he said. "They are out in the way that most people are out in that people they love and that people who care about them know that they are gay. But random strangers don’t know that they are gay."

Fashanu remains the only top-level British soccer player to have come out publicly, acknowledging he was gay in 1990. The former Nottingham Forest and Norwich City striker was found hanged in a London garage at age 37.

According to an inquest, Fashanu left a note saying, because he was gay, he feared he wouldn’t get a fair trial in the United States on sexual assault charges. Maryland police were seeking him on charges that he sexually assaulted a 17-year-old boy after a party at his apartment.

Robbie Rogers, a former U.S. national team player who played for Leeds in England’s second-tier division last season, went public in February that he was gay, saying on his personal website that "I realized I could only truly enjoy my life once I was honest." He also said he was retiring from the sport.

Forty gay couples in South Dakota applied to be married during the first month following a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized such unions across the country, according to data provided by the state Department of Health.